‘Mursi’s move undemocratic?’

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Qaanitah Hunter| Cii News| November 29, 2012

If the Egyptian President, Mohammed Mursi’s intentions of giving himself sweeping new powers was to protect the country from corrupt judges he could have used his legislative powers, Egyptian journalist and analyst, Sarah Khorshied said.

Speaking to Cii from Egypt, Khorshied said Mursi could have amended the law regarding judges and judgment in a way that would not compromise the basic tenants of democracy.

The president announced last Thursday a decree allowing him to “issue any decision or law that is final and not subject to appeal”, which effectively placed him beyond judicial scrutiny.

“Since he came to the presidency, Mursi made many steps that go clearly against what he says to be an intention to secure the revolution,” Khorshied said.

She explained that Mursi appointed the prime minister who appointed the cabinet under his watch, many of whom formed part of the old regime.

“So how do you give yourself sweeping powers in order to cleanse the country of the old regime if you yourself appointed new ministers of the old regime for no understandable reason?”

Several hundreds of protestors across the country came out to the streets to denounce Morsi’s assumption of new powers with some even accusing him of imposing autocratic rule less than 2 years after the country ousted dictator, Hosni Mubarak.

But the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Morsi belongs to, fully backed Morsi’s decision saying he is preserving the country’s revolution.

An analytical report by the Afro-Middel East Centre based in Johannesburg contextualised the decisions taken by Mursi:

“In order fully to understand the controversy and what some would call Mursi’s suicidal decisions, greater context is required. Long hated, the Egyptian judiciary had been utilised by the Mubarak regime as a tool to rubberstamp the former president’s decisions. As a result, in 1991 an independent judges’ movement was formed. After the 25 January uprisings, the judiciary continued acting as a Mubarak proxy: it dissolved the democratically-elected parliament on technical grounds and refused to oppose the decision of the Supreme Council of the

“Armed Forces to usurp legislative and executive powers just before the announcement of Mursi as president in June. It also ruled that the first constitution drafting panel was unconstitutional and it was poised to rule on the constitutionality of the It is noteworthy that over forty appeals or cases were lodged with the courts concerning the representivity of the current panel, thus showing that, aside from its Mubarak era bias, it has increasingly been used by opponents to fight political battles around the future nature of the Egyptian political system, specifically around the religious vs. secular nature of the constitution and whether the system will be presidential or parliamentary.

“Egypt has also witnessed numerous protests around the failure of the regime to prosecute former figures from the Mubarak regime for their role in the violent quelling of protests last year. All political forces acknowledged that Mahmoud’s shoddy investigation and his failure to collect evidence judiciously are the chief reasons for this. Mubarak himself was not found guilty of knowing about orders to violently suppress protests and his interior minister Habib Adly escaped the death penalty as a result. Moreover, 19 November saw demonstrations commemorating the anniversary of last year’s ‘Mohamed Mahmoud protests’, which at the time resulted in the deaths of forty-five people, with many more injured. Thus far no real action has been taken to prosecute the security forces.”

In an interview with London based satellite television station, al-Hiwar, the editor-in-chief of al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, Abdel Bari Atwan, revealed the existence of intelligence reports documenting a secret meeting between former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, and Amr Mousa during the latter’s unexpected visit to Ramallah on November 4 – ten days before the attacks on the Gaza Strip.

Reports mentioned that Livni made a direct request from Amr Mousa to pre-occupy Egyptian President, Mohamed Morsi, during this period with internal affairs.

The writer believes this is what in effect happened as Amr Mousa returned from his visit and lead the withdrawals from the Constituent Assembly of the Constitution without providing any reason convincing to public opinion. So much so that he affected an altercation with the head of the Constituent Assembly and blocked an article of the constitution which he himself had proposed.

This matter occupied Egyptian public opinion and talk show programs and he escalated his attack on President Morsi as the attack on Gaza escalated.

According to Atwan, “these reports coincide with statements made by Israeli Middle East expert, Binhas Anbari, during an interview with the satellite TV channel ‘Russia Today’. Anbari asserted that Egyptian President, Mohammed Morsi, aborted the Israeli operation in Gaza before it began, and that “we counted on forces inside Israel to preoccupy him with internal political and economic affairs.”